Park Monceau

Parc Monceau lay a few streets from the Caillebotte family house on rue de Miromesnil, in a quarter of Paris that had filled with new mansions since the city opened the park to the public in 1861. Caillebotte signed this view and dated it 77, and it did not stay with him long. On 28 May 1877 he joined Pissarro, Renoir and Sisley in an auction of their own paintings at the Hôtel Drouot, the Paris sale rooms, only weeks after their third group exhibition had closed. Of the 45 pictures on offer, four were Caillebotte's, and this was one of them. It shows a broad sandy path under spring foliage, a row of benches along the left and a single man in a grey suit and hat walking toward us. It is one of only two paintings he made of the park. Monet, who painted Parc Monceau in 1876 and again in 1878, filled it with fashionably dressed women and children.